MORE OBSERVATIONS ON GERMAN SOCIETY and CULTURE

Germany is a unique society that is becoming less and less German. The invasion from the east and middle east has really grown; Asians,Thais, Afghans, Turks, Iranians, Iraquis and people from all parts of Africa. You see it in the construction of mosques and of indigenous restaurants. Forget about Chinese, that is so passe!
    Fashion indicates the societal change too.
The djellaba and the kaftan or afghan 'tent' like covering are very prevalent on the streets. One could say bravo for the egalitarianism of the Germans, but like the Internet is degenerating non-English languages, German egalitarianism is forcing social change on Germans. The nation no longer is socially uniform and homogeneously German. Still, to work, these immigrants must learn rudimentary German and they do !
So the language is not totally lost yet.  But it is unusual  to find a German in their big cities who doesn't speak English or just understands it.
   So German society changes but it already is a different society when one goes to a brau house  for a beer and something to eat.

   North Americans use eating utensils differently than Europeans. Again, I seem to over emphasize German, and European efficiency. But, for whatever reason, they eat differently. The Germans pick up the fork with their left hand, knife in the right and manipulate their meal without ever changing the hand of use for the eating utensil. North Americans, depending on which hand is dominant, pick up the fork with that hand. If they are right handed, they switch the utensils after working on their food. Makes no sense at all.

    But another observation of German society. Enter a pub or bistro in Canada, and you see youth, very few seniors. In Germany, lots of seniors, and not necessarily mixed couples either, nor, all men as the seniors seem to group in Canada. I met two seniors ladies in a brauhaus beer garden. They were 'sluggin'' back the beers and some wines and I asked if I might take their foto. They agreed. When I asked if they came to the beer garden often and stated that they would be a  very unusual sight in a Canadian pub, they replied that German society is truly democratic and old people can mix equally with the young. Besides, they added, "it is more fun to be outside having a beer with people, than to be inside watching TV alone. Oh, how this society lives and thinks differently.

    Finally, as different as they may be, Germans are human and human beings love mental exercise. On the subways, the buses, park benches, everwhere, people are reading, solving crosswords, searching for sudoku solutions. Human's must have some internal mental itch which can only be scratched by doing these intellectual exercises. Same with physical exercise, but Munchens seem to not only desire exercise but have it built into their metropolitan system. They bicycle everywhere throughout their city, and all ages too from young kids to seniors. As you might guess, though the Munchens love their beer, drinking barrels per person each year, there are very few obese people around. I may have been the chunkiest rider in all of Munich. Sad, but I still rode and wore off a little bit of the beers.

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